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Wow the new epi "Equestria Games" is massive fail. They hype it up for a year and half and when they show it the drop the ball. We saw two events, a bad opening ceremony and the closing ceremony. Bronze medals for everyone!

Wow the new epi "Equestria Games" is massive fail. They hype it up for a year and half and when they show it the drop the ball. We saw two events, a bad opening ceremony and the closing ceremony. Bronze medals for everyone!

It wasn't really meant to focus on the games themselves. It was about Spike who got a good story out of it (two good Spike stories in a row? By god, Tartarus must've frozen over). Even then, what kind of story would we've gotten? A story where cheaters cheat but are soon found out? A few events that resemble the olympics in our world but nothing much in terms of characters?

To put it bluntly, the thing about the writers:

That is to say, sure it's not wrong to want to see more of the Games (it might've been cool)... BUT you don't really have a say in how it's shown or the story that's told.

I ... actually liked that it didn't focus much on the games. We already got a pretty good episode like that in Rainbow Falls. Here we got a throwback to The Crystal Empire, lighter-Spike, Games Ponies Play, and of course Rainbow Falls. I liked the dynamic between Twilight and Spike, and that mommy-Twilight kicked in just long enough to save her baby from embarrassment. There were other little touches in the character dynamic that I really liked. The CMC with their Big Sisters (including Big Sis Rainbow Dash finally), Cadance and Twilight, Twilight and Celestia, and Dash and Fluttershy. There were little touches that just made the episode.

... except that Shining Armor was apparently not given a seat with his wife or even the rest of the royals. Ouch.

Speaking of that, my last comment for this episode's being thrown into spoilers because it relates to what we know about the finale. FAIR WARNING. Spoiler:

Looks like we got a bit of foreshadowing around 4-5 minutes in with the scene at the Royal Box. Twilight still don't look comfortable being treated like a Princes s. The first thing she does when she plops down? Look for her friends who were in the stands below.

Why is that important? Well, the Hub released this teaser for the finale earlier today.

Look around the 0:04 mark.

Look REALLY hard.

... because when you see it you cannot unsee it.

I thought it was a pretty powerful scene since I watched the teaser first.

The Master of Ceremonies sits somewhere when he isn't speaking. Wherever it is it isn't with his wife. I'm inclined to think that it's because Shining Armor is Prince Consort and not a Prince in his own right.

I'm rewatching episodes I think will be relevant to the finale tonight. I noticed Shining Armor apparently doesn't have a seat in the throne room in the Crystal Empire, either.

I ... actually liked that it didn't focus much on the games. We already got a pretty good episode like that in Rainbow Falls. Here we got a throwback to The Crystal Empire, lighter-Spike, Games Ponies Play, and of course Rainbow Falls. I liked the dynamic between Twilight and Spike, and that mommy-Twilight kicked in just long enough to save her baby from embarrassment. There were other little touches in the character dynamic that I really liked. The CMC with their Big Sisters (including Big Sis Rainbow Dash finally), Cadance and Twilight, Twilight and Celestia, and Dash and Fluttershy. There were little touches that just made the episode.

... except that Shining Armor was apparently not given a seat with his wife or even the rest of the royals. Ouch.

Speaking of that, my last comment for this episode's being thrown into spoilers because it relates to what we know about the finale. FAIR WARNING. Spoiler:

Looks like we got a bit of foreshadowing around 4-5 minutes in with the scene at the Royal Box. Twilight still don't look comfortable being treated like a Princes s. The first thing she does when she plops down? Look for her friends who were in the stands below.

Why is that important? Well, the Hub released this teaser for the finale earlier today.

Look around the 0:04 mark.

Look REALLY hard.

... because when you see it you cannot unsee it.

I thought it was a pretty powerful scene since I watched the teaser first.

Spoiler:

So, going from the comments I read there, is this villain actually supposed to be Tirek, or is it just fan speculation at the moment? Assuming this is what I'm supposed to be seeing at around 0:04 of the teaser?

People are speculating that it's Tirek because they expect this to be a retelling of Rescue at Midnight Castle; the pilot episode for the G1 My Little Pony cartoon. The current speculation is that the box contains the Rainbow of Light which is an artifact that was used in that special to defeat the villain Tirek. We can see something that looks an awful lot like the Rainbow of Light at the end of the trailer.

Incidentally, Tirek wanted to cast the world into Eternal Darkness. So there are some parallels to draw with certain characters.

In addition, the original Tirek required four adult ponies to pull his chariot of darkness as he unleashed eternal darkness. The speculation behind that is that new-Tirek needs to capture four alicorn Princesses instead. He captures Celestia, Luna, and Cadance but not before they can collectively give their power to Twilight.

It's also worth nothing that the G4 Mane 6 are based off the ponies in this pilot. The only difference being Firefly (the inspiration for Rainbow Dash) was presented as a main character over Twilight (the inspiration for Twilight Sparkle).

I just watched that point in the the teaser again. Now that I really look closely, I can notice something magical happening where Twilight's wings are. My best guess at this point, I mean, this trailer is all we have to go on for the time being, is that she'll lose her wings and go back to being just a unicorn.

Well in regards to that it's not just Twilight. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash are glowing too. It seems to be making its way around the circle, so we figure they initiated a transformation spell. Which ... considering that Twilight was studying transformation spells throughout the season is not too surprising.

I guess it's too subtle to see at a glance, but in the background you can see some thrones. There are Seven thrones. Twilights is in the upper left hand corner. The one beside hers is smaller without a Cutie Mark. Then on the left side you can see a throne with Applejack's (top right) and Rarity's (middle right) Cutie Marks on it. Some claim to see Rainbow Dash's mark on the left-middle throne, but the flashes of light are too strong for me to make a 100% identification. I thought it was Pinkie Pie's mark until I saw the comments. Ultimately it doesn't really matter because there's clearly seven thrones.

Well -- the thing I was pointing out in regards to last week's episode and this was an observation in Twilight's behavior over the season. She seems very uncomfortable with being a Princess still, but now it seems we're getting some context as to why. It seems that she doesn't like the idea of being in an elevated position compared to her friends since they all worked together to get this far.

I did notice those thrones in the background, I just thought they were there for decoration to make that room they're in more fancy. I definitely didn't notice the cutie marks on them the first two times I watched this scene.

If these thrones are some indication, then it looks like, possibly, the other five ponies and Spike might be ascending to some form of royalty themselves.

I'm now really curious who the "unlikely ally" that the main six get help from will be.
In the end, it will probably just end up being Discord, but then again that seems like it would be a little too obvious. To me, at least.

But then I got to thinking, what do they mean by "unlikely ally" in this situation? Someone they made friends with in the past that was originally an antagonist? Or someone who we only saw once and was a good guy when we first met them?

For the former, the only character that comes to mind is Trixie. I mean, her and Twilight left each other last on better terms than they did at the end of Boast Busters. But then again, this does seem like a stretch for who it might be helping them.

For the latter, I really have no idea. When it comes to characters to they made friends with over the years that have always been good guys, it could be anyone in this situation.

Reformed or not, Princess Celestia choosing Discord over Twilight is pretty unexpected. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the speculation of Discord siding with the big-bad is also not happening.. Just so happens the villain found them first. Unlike the Season Opener where Discord was pretty much forced to help and also did the bare minimal he'll actually make an attempt to be useful here.

This isn't really news, but today Equestria Girls was confirmed for a TV Spinoff called Equestria Academy that'll begin airing November 2014.

Reformed or not, Princess Celestia choosing Discord over Twilight is pretty unexpected. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the speculation of Discord siding with the big-bad is also not happening.. Just so happens the villain found them first. Unlike the Season Opener where Discord was pretty much forced to help and also did the bare minimal he'll actually make an attempt to be useful here.

This isn't really news, but today Equestria Girls was confirmed for a TV Spinoff called Equestria Academy that'll begin airing November 2014.

Spoiler:

Yeah, I probably am. Who the unlikely ally is going to be is going to be bugging me all week until the finale, or until they reveal to us before then who it is.

I'm now really curious who the "unlikely ally" that the main six get help from will be.
In the end, it will probably just end up being Discord, but then again that seems like it would be a little too obvious. To me, at least.

But then I got to thinking, what do they mean by "unlikely ally" in this situation? Someone they made friends with in the past that was originally an antagonist? Or someone who we only saw once and was a good guy when we first met them?

For the former, the only character that comes to mind is Trixie. I mean, her and Twilight left each other last on better terms than they did at the end of Boast Busters. But then again, this does seem like a stretch for who it might be helping them.

For the latter, I really have no idea. When it comes to characters to they made friends with over the years that have always been good guys, it could be anyone in this situation.

Spoiler:

Now that we know what we know, it could end up being Scorpan.

Last edited by SBaby; 8th May 2014 at 10:18 AM.

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.
- Bruce Lee

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I was actually really surprised with this episode, the premise sounded pretty bad (25 was sounding to be a generic Worf Effect episode, and 26 sounded like something out of bad fanfiction), but the execution surprised me a bit. They took the character arcs in directions that I wanted to see, but didn't expect (Twilight not really feeling like her role as a princess is important, Discord questioning his friendship with the Mane 6 because it contradicts his nature). I also liked the villain, stealing magic is a neat villain power (with the plus of confirming some neat tidbits about flight and Earth Pony strength being magic). And I liked how this season ended a bit less ambiguously than Season 3, where Twilight turning into a Princess caused a lot of confusing, a new castle sprouting in Ponyville does not, we know that this changes pretty much nothing except for where Twilight lives (and 50 bits says that the throne room is their new "situation room")

What I didn't like was that they sort of handwaved the ending to the "Discord betrays Equestria" plotline by having Tirek betray Discord, and he instantly just went back to being friends with them without really tackling the issue that caused his betrayal in the first place (maybe in Season 5, they could deal with this again in another episode, though, where Discord would look back and realize that maybe Tirek was right and starts to revert to his old ways). Also, I don't really like that we're back to using random Deus Ex Machina artifacts to defeat villains, it's a real cop out for writing a more satisfying ending (although they didn't really describe how Rainbow Power works, so maybe there could be limitations or weaknesses introduced in later episodes).

But overall, good episode, and a good way to close out an otherwise fairly dull season.

Originally Posted by LizardonX

Tabitha has really let himself go, just how many lava cookies did he eat in the last 11 years?

Discord gave the best performance here by far. I guess the way that I interpreted his situation was that he could also relate to what Twilight was feeling which was why he tried to help her in the beginning. Before his reform he was the God of Chaos and was pretty sure his role was to spread it throughout Equestria. Now that he's reformed he's sort of a fish out of water where one group of ponies think he's still evil, another group thinks he's annoying, and a third group who's Fluttershy. What Fluttershy said to him at the end was pretty spot-on. He still had a ways to go before he could truly be considered a friend of the inner-circle.

Did ... Celestia know what was going to happen? Thinking back, this all seemed to be some sort of Batman Gambit. Celestia stops Twilight from going after Tirek immediately because she knows she'll be imprisoned in Taturus if she went too soon. Celestia sends Discord after Tirek because she knows he'll taunt Twilight about it and encourage her to research opening the box. When she summons Twilight back to Canterlot she specifically tells her not to tell her friends about the plan. Why? So Twilight would be forced to tell her friends to stay behind in Ponyville where they'll be captured by Tirek. They pool their magic into Twilight so she's evenly matched with Tirek after inevitably stealing Discord's power. This forces a stalemate -- if not for Tirek using her friends as pawns to get what she wants. Twilight, being Twilight, would rather forsake her duty to the other Princesses than save her friends. She surrenders her power only after seeing that everypony is safe, and because she insisted on forgiving Discord she ultimately got the Key that she needed to open the chest.

The plan only worked because everyone involved, good and evil, preformed exactly as Celestia anticipated that they would. She even anticipated that Tirek would see no point in imprisoning Twilight or Discord like they were since he had all the alicorn magic. Sis should have a Knight Chestpiece as her Cutie Mark.

Should've known Twilight would get her key from Discord. He's had the most influence on her growth so far.

Also that's some pretty strong Fluttercord, there.

We'll probably get more context into how the Rainbow of Light works next season. It's actually quite a relief that the Rainbow Power is a temporary Super Form. Most of them look fine with the Rainbow Power, but I think Dash and Rarity's designs are pretty terrible. I guess we do have something like the Knights of the Round Table going on now. It's nice to see the other girls (and Spike!) got some level of recognition since this was the umpteenth time they've saved everyone.

As far as limitations go I can think of a handful:

- They can only use Rainbow Power together as a group. No turning it on in an individual episode.

- They have to either go to the Tree of Harmony or be relatively close to the Tree to activate it. So it has a range.

- Rainbow Power, like a Super Form, is on a time limit. Once they power down they can't power back up immediately.

- Like the original Elements the girls have to be in perfect harmony to activate them. If one doesn't feel up to it they can't go Rainbow.

- What we saw during the finale probably is a very raw form of what it can really do. They'll actually have to train to bring out it's full potential.

That fight scene.
That was something right out of DBZ right there. Well, not entirely. If it was, than this scene alone would have been, say, 8 parts with the first four parts being entirely devoted to Twilight charging up her magical power and the final four parts being about just her executing this attack.

Anyway, in all seriousness though, that scene has to be the most epic fight scene this show has had by far.

A few things regarding Discord in these episodes:

1.) I wonder if this means that Discord is going to be getting closer to being a more main character as of this point in the show. I mean, the way he was with everyone else at the end just makes me feel that this could happen at some point.

2.) So Discord was the "unlikely ally" that the first teaser mentioned? Unless I really missed something by a mile, then the episode didn't really make it all that obvious to me.